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I am the King and the Queen,
Of my subtracted world,
From my bedroom to where my smartphone takes me,
It’s shinning and laughing with glee.
Walking on the road, I hit a plastic bottle
‘High Score!’ cried my smartphone, when a little
Skinny girl pulled my sweater
Dirty hands open up… there was a letter
Crumpled, old and torn…ah, useless
I thought, but still checked it, to find two words
– Remember Addition?
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Granny’s smile has lots of secrets and lots of memories in it. She is always smiling, beaming; we can also count her wrinkles rising from her cheeks to her closed eyes; eyes shining with childlike brightness, watery eyes speaking the language of love.
It is early morning and everyone in the house is running hither and thither. Mummy is cooking food and packing the tiffin-boxes. The children are late once again and Daddy is going to give them a lift to the school. But Daddy himself cannot find his tie and the green file and somehow Mummy is managing everything right from the kitchen.
In this daily drama we see Granny sitting in the balcony, she is combing her grand-daughter’s plaits; Granny talks about her late grandmother who use to tie her plaits, to which her little granddaughter giggles up and says, ‘Granny you also had a Granny?’
Mummy shouts from the kitchen as the clock declares it is 8. Everyone is late!
In this relay race, this cute family is asked to stop and pose for a photograph. Daddy says no but the children agree and Mummy is caught between them; while everyone else hesitates only to agree in the end, the granddaughter brings Granny inside and both of them settle comfortably on the sofa for the photograph.
Say Cheese! Click!
Daddy is awkwardly smiling with a bad tie-shirt combination making him look funny; Mummy is smiling nicely and is hiding her apron behind her; the children are looking full of life and sleepy at the same time; the granddaughter is hugging her Granny and saying cheese loudly; Granny is smiling peacefully.
Daddy, Mummy and the children wish Granny a good-bye, she waves back at them from the balcony. They leave in their car and get mixed with the ‘bhroom-honk-honk-bhroom’ crowd on the road.
When Granny is asked about the brightness in her eyes and the secret behind her smile, she laughs musically and says, ‘thank you very much’.
Enjoying the scene from her gallery she seems to be waiting for somebody. She walks slowly to the kitchen like there is no need to hurry, this is how blessed she is, maybe this the reason behind her smile.
When we are about to leave the house, she calls us and asks us to meet her friend. Back in the gallery, Granny is feeding a stale roti to a crow with extreme joy in her eyes.
She indicates us to take her photograph with the crow. She is already saying cheese. Click!
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If you peep through the keyhole
The small world you see
Might look real and free
The sky, the bird, the tree
The building, the street and me
All with the round edge and incomplete
Half of the shine and half of the night
Half of the smile and half of the ride
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When the journey ends, it ends
Though the keyholes are in trend
Laughing loudly at yourself you’ll see
One can open the door without any fee.
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When I said, “I don’t know”
They said, “Hah, but we know.”
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They don’t know me at all,
Standing up on the wall,
They look down at me and shout,
“You are dying silly, lookout.”
I tremble as the screams hit me,
Drab and numb, says my graphic tee…
I tumbled, tripped and hurt my toe,
But I stood up and decided to go.
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I smiled and said, “I know now.”
They said to me, “But how?”
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Can it be that I reach there
Where the golden light changes into golden colour
And bold red and deep orange strokes
All over the night full of violet stars
Hum together a silent melody…
Where I breathe cool wet air
And dance dance dance…
Then I dip my hand in the sky
And a pink sparkle snake
Shines and merges with the violet stars…
Where it is quietly blue and silver,
Where the golden light changes into golden colour
Can it be that I reach there?
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Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
The melody flows like a stream of water breaking the dryness of the earth, silently and smoothly.
Suddenly you are in a colourful and sweet world. And you listen for the first time to the rhythmic world and you realise that life is not heavy but it is light as a feather. The feather dances.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
By now you are humming and hoeing and weeding. This is what you want to do in life, with lots of time to sit under a tree, half sleepy, looking at the clouds you smile.
This is what you wish for, once you reach the Scarborough Fair.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
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And now you paint… after seeing so many colours you begin playing. Red hands, orange hands, yellow hands, green hands, blue hands, indigo hands, violet hands – you have given birth to a rainbow.
Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Remembering that good old vision of the future and a memory of the past, all you actually need is a smile in the present.
While walking I realised that the Earth is walking and so is the cosmos, this jamming made me happy. The sweetness and the warmth and the lightness of this real and tangible feeling took me to the Scarborough Fair.
All I can say now is that I am swaying with the wind and smiling brightly. There is a ribbon, long and beautiful and silky, it is also swaying with the wind and smiling brightly.
You’ll find it too when you go to the Scarborough Fair.
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Listen to the blissful track – Scarborough Fair by Simon & Garfunkel – that inspired the blogger to write this post.
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Sky blue sky
Asks me why
There is no time
To live the time
Which is mine?
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Sky blue sky
Tells me why
Smiles are better,
Far more better
Than promises on a letter
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Sky blue sky
Shows me why
The painter paints
Alive, very happy and
In love, he paints
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Sky blue sky
Knows why
Two eyes
Look at the sky-
To take the blue spirit inside.
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“One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree.
‘Which road do I take?’ she asked.
‘Where do you want to go?’ was his response.
‘I don’t know,’ Alice answered.’
Then’, said the cat, ‘it doesn’t matter.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
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How true! Nothing matters at all until you know where you want to go. Sometimes we don’t think and we reach nowhere, as that is what we had thought of. Then at times, we think we know where we want to go but we find ourselves cheated or fooled and so we halt. There are also a few among us who don’t stop and finally reach an end of a journey.
Mostly, the circumstances around us influence our decisions and we find that we have become a part of a huge structure. This happens a lot.
The best thing that we can try to do is to know where to go, uninfluenced by anyone; in knowing one’s way and steadily walking ahead and smiling on the way as it is ‘our way’.
Knowing oneself is not easy but is ultimate.
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The blogger wrote this post long, long, long back, and probably when she was feeling utterly hopeless.
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Dear reader, check out the following posts to rekindle hope and joy within (you too may read it, o-me-from-the-past):-
Spirited Away and the Art of Forgetfulness
Paper-Light-Lemon-Fresh-Stories
The Old Fortune-Teller’s Special Offer
Ninety-Nine Times out of a Hundred
Life-Affirming Pair of Socks with Three Holes in It
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The place where the embodiment of peace, Gautama Buddha, found enlightenment was recently shaken by bomb blasts. The holy Bodh Gaya shrine became the target of those who believe in destruction. The government has started the probe and they are confident of finding the culprits. Meanwhile, the Buddhists are back to chanting and praying, back with the Lord himself.
Such blasts cannot stop what Gautama Buddha started. He commenced an inward journey; a journey to find oneself, to realise the inner self and hence attain inner peace. What the confused and angry minds cannot understand (and may never understand until they end their confusion and calm down) is that what Buddha taught and left behind is not stored in a shrine or in a scripture or in any physical form.
What he left is eternal and universal. It is in nature and it is nature. It can only be felt and realised and not be touched with bare hands. It is everywhere and in everyone waiting to get recognised.
The ones who stubbornly want to fight don’t know that Buddha is in them too. Buddha is in all of us; when we act purely, correctly and truly the Buddhahood shines in us too. How can something so powerful be destroyed? How can something so true be crossed? We mere mortals can never do so; our futile attempts will only look ridiculous.
You need not worry about any evil in this world; all you need is to reach the state of Buddhahood, to let it shine in you. Radiating light everywhere you’ll then fulfil the purpose of being you.
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Sujata – The Voice of the Unheard
Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam – A tale of role-reversals and downfalls
Chalti Ka Naam Gaadi (That which moves is called a car)
Mrinal Sen’s Aakaler Shandhane (In Search of Famine)
La Strada And The Round-Faced Clown
Sherni – Even in the dense jungle, the tigress knows her way.
Gabbeh, the 1996 film, is a simple tale of a gipsy girl, her clan and the way their life goes on. Unfolding beautifully just like an artist painting a canvas, Gabbeh quietly touches the grand questions.
Essentially Gold, The Lavender Hill Mob
Ranked as one of the greatest British films of all time, The Lavender Hill Mob confides in the audience, letting them see, feel, laugh and think without tickling persuasively with a joke here and a punch-line there.
Regina Spektor’s Musical World – Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V
Of Monsters and Men and This Journey
The Circle Game, Joni Mitchell, You and Me
The Answer Is Blowin’ In The Wind
The Wonderful Mr. Tambourine Man Song
Weather Forecast Says Listen to George Ezra
The Choir and Their Toads Sing ‘Double Trouble’
Yes fly! For walking on the second track is dull and usual, but dreaming high, high, high requires tools. Tools like the right pair of shoes, a chirpy, gritty soul that eats butter-jam dreams, a soul that drinks milky-milky creams.
Silver cascade shimmering the night sky, music to the waves and surreal beauty to the eyes, the Moon loves the art of discipline.
It may be difficult to believe for the Moon’s splendour defies time, it stupefies the clock, it follows the path of a dreamer, but how could this be possible if the Moon knew not discipline?
In this moment, I am a little bit of this and a little bit of that, I am complete and incomplete, I am pleased and uncertain, I wish for nothing and I know I have to wait.
Because the distance covered reminds me of the hurdles I have crossed and the ones I could not, it reminds me of a throbbing past and a dreamy future and it reminds me of how much time is left.
A joy so complete without any rise or fall, so free without any time corners, so real without true being false, false being true.
